Ripkin was an obvious pick, but the Oriole's name didn't fly this coup early.

Leaks were held to a minimum because Time Warner Inc., the New York-based media conglomerate that publishes the popular magazines, wants to surprise subscribers.

They generally receive their copies through the mail a few days after they are printed.

"There are some things they can't say anything about," said Dick Serafin, director of print operations at Time Inc., the publishing arm of Time Warner.

"They've had our business for many years and do a substantial amount of copies -- nearly 3 million per week -- in the East Greenville area.

"Brown Printing has the up-to-date equipment required for our `collapsing cycle time' --which means the ever-compressed time from when the editor writes until the magazine reaches the subscriber."

Brown Printing, which uses six plants across the country to print Time, Sports Illustrated and other magazines, isn't about to break the news -- until the magazines reach subscribers through the mail.

"Some of these issues have to be printed in secrecy," said Kevin Borden, the plant's technical director who led a tour of the site. "The publishers don't want the names getting out before the magazines arrive."

But the period during which Brown Printing employees have to hold their secrets is getting shorter, thanks to modern presses and computers.

Six hours after receiving the final film from New York at 3 a.m. Sunday, Time is on the press and copies are being sent to New York, Borden said.

Brown Printing produces about 80 different titles, but it has developed a strong relationship with Time-Warner in recent years.

It was founded in 1957 by Wayne "Bumps" Brown, the son of a small newspaper owner in Waseca, Minn.

Brown Printing opened the Upper Perkiomen Valley plant in 1977 and soon after began printing Time-Warner magazines.

It is now a subsidiary of Germany-based Gruner Jahr, which is part of the giant publishing company Bertelsmann AG of Germany which employs more than 57,000 people.

Bertelsmann earned $382.6 million last year, a 6.4 percent increase from 1994.

Sales were $13.6 billion a year ago, an 11.4 percent increase.

Brown Printing, which does not release earnings figures, operates out of two other large plants, one in Minnesota and the other in Franklin, Ky., and two smaller ones in California, Borden said.

But the Upper Perkiomen site is key, since its products are distributed in the most highly populated area of the United States.

"From the beginning, this plant was intended to be a weekly magazine production plant, which we are today," Borden said. "The seed of our growth was the Time magazine titles.

"Right now, we distribute Time magazine and others from New York City to Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C."

Demand became so strong that Brown Printing spent $7.5 million to install two presses and add 44,000 square feet to the building in 1992.

The company had more than doubled employment and sales since the 1986 arrival of Frieder de Biasi, vice president of operations and general manager. He runs the plant.

But the growth has been rather quiet for Brown Printing, and the company likes it that way.

De Biasi, a mechanical engineer by trade who started his career in a German nuclear power plant, said he joined the printing company and moved to America "for 3-1/2 years 16 years ago."

After six years at Brown Printing's headquarters in Minnesota, he arrived in Upper Hanover.

"If we ever stop moving our walls, it's time to worry," de Biasi said. "We have been changing and moving walls ever since I came here."

This year, the company spent $14 million to buy a new Heidelberg Harris press and expand its building by 14,000 square feet. The facility now measures about 300,000 square feet. It now has six presses.

"Our customers will benefit from both the shorter cutoff and the expanded product varieties that are possible with this press," de Biasi said.

"The (new press) allows us to produce higher page counts in combination with a wide selection of delivery options on both magazine and tabloid products."

The new press allows Brown Printing to double the amount of paper used and printed in each hour. It is so efficient that it allowed the company to remove two other presses.

The new press can print 140,000 24-page products per hour, compared to the older press' 140,000 16-page products per hour.